


What Happens in New Vegas

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After one quest, one war and one ill-fated attempt to turn the lights back on - Charlie has worked one thing for sure. Miles is never going to kill Sebastian Monroe. So when she finds out where the deposed General ran to, she decides to take matters into her own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens in New Vegas

New Vegas glittered against the desert night. Candles and mirrors and clever angles lit up the diminished Sin City like the power was still on. It made it easy to find for the drunks and the wastrels and those looking for trouble.

Charlie walked under the archway entrance, a barker in top hat and tails over a ripped, bare chest chivvying her to, ‘Abandon virtue, all ye who enter here.’

She didn’t bother telling him she already had. Hitching her pack up on her shoulder she strode through the haphazardly laid out streets, trying not to gawp like a hick. It wasn’t easy. Atlanta was a grander city - with her buses and coffee shops and cool, cotton suits - but New Vegas was an eye-catching strumpet. Music blared from tents, raw and jaunty, and buskers tumbled and juggled and winked from the ill-defined alleys between tent.

‘It’s a blow-in baby,’ a leggy red-head in shiny leather underwear said, winking at Charlie. ‘Say goodbye to your pockets, sweet thing.’

She tossed her head back, hair flipping against her back in a gaudy tangle, and lifted one of the brands from a nearby drum. Glossy red lips pursed and she spat a tongue of flame across the street in front of Charlie. She jumped back, sucking her breath in. The flame left a black mark where it had licked against the tent opposite. A fat man in a top hat yelled curses, shaking his fist, and the fire-breather laughed and gave him the finger.

As tricks went, Charlie preferred Aaron’s penny from behind her ear - he let her keep the pennies - but she tossed a few coins into the waiting hat anyhow. It got a wink and a smirk - and hopefully at least one question.

‘I’m looking for a fight,’ she said.

The fire-breather looked her up and down. A wry smile twisted her bright, stained mouth. ‘You’ll lose, sweet thing.’

No. She wouldn’t. 

‘To bet on, a prize fight. I’m to meet someone there,’ she said. ‘At Annabeth’s place.’

A flick of her wrist sent the fire-breather’s brand spinning up into the night. The light caught in the ever-present mirrors, shattering their reflection over the sand. It slapped back down into the fire-breather’s hand.

‘That does not narrow it down,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘This is Annabeth’s place,’ the fire-breath said, gesturing at the tents surrounding them. ‘New Vegas is her baby. So...’

‘Prize fights in a whore house. Tent,’ Charlie said, lips tight around the words. ‘A blue-eyed fighter that doesn’t lose.’

‘Ben.’

Charlie’s mouth twitched - a mute start on a ‘fuck him’ - and she shrugged. ‘Sounds like him.’

‘You’re the one meeting him, baby, don’t you know?’

‘I’ll know when I see him.’

There was a pause. The firebreather looked meaningfully at the hat between her feet. Charlie sighed. She cared too much about the information, it made it more valuable than a simple ‘that way’ should be. Three more coins - rough cast copper, stamped with a stylised horse - dropped into the hat.

‘Blue tent,’ the firebreather said. ‘That way. If he got you pregnant, baby, you’re shit out of luck. What money he doesn’t drink, he gambles away.’

‘Not my problem,’ Charlie said. ‘Thanks for the help.’

She strode away before the fire-breather could ask anymore questions. The blue tent was on the outskirts of New Vegas, red-painted lanterns burning outside the entrance. Rough cheers and jeers leaked out through the thin canvas. Charlie ducked inside and shoved her way through the jostling crowd, making her way ringside. It smelt of old sweat, fresh liquor and blood - tugging disturbingly at some node in Charlie’s brain that couldn’t tell the difference between battle and a cock-fight.

A leggy blonde held up her hands for silence, eyes bright with excitement. Her tongue swiped over her lips as she waited for the crowd to hush.

‘It’s the match you’ve all be waiting for,’ she said, voice throaty and throbbing. ‘New Vegas’ own undefeated, untouchable Ben Baker against … whoever this bloke is.’

She jerked her thumb to the side - rough hands and laugher pushing a hard, hard-used man into the circle. The derisive roar of the crowd flushed his skin red - scars standing out like decorations - and he pumped his fists in the air.

‘I’m gonna break pretty-boy’s face,’ he yelled, voice cracking with the need to be heard. ‘Crack it in fucking half!’

Charlie smiled for what felt like the first time in months. That she’d like to see.

* * *

  
  


The kiss was hot, slick and tasted like cinnamon and the suspicion of other men’s cocks. She wouldn’t say and he didn’t really care. Annabeth’s nails pinched the back of his neck as she pulled him in close.

‘Kick his fat ass for me,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll let you drink on the house.’

Fucking was free; booze cost extra. 

Usually. This guy must have pissed her off. Man-handled one of the women, probably, or the kids. Annabeth was 28 and she’d started New Vegas when she was 18. The math said bad times.

He kissed her back. ‘I always kick their ass.’

She stepped back, tall as him in those shiny black boots. Her eyes glittered as she winked. ‘Kick it extra-special hard.’ A quick turn gave him a good view of her spectacular ass as she held her arms to catch the crowd’s attention. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes!’ they yelled, a scattering of cheers and claps underscoring it.

It wasn’t enough. She wanted them drunk on violence, so she could get them drunk on booze and pussy (not free, not for them) afterwards. 

‘What?’ she mocked, hand to her ear. ‘I said, are you FUCKING READY!’

The roar was wordless, lustful, and she laughed and spun out of the way. ‘Fight!’

Bass walked forwards, not bothering to posture. It had cost him money - the first few fights - now it was part of Ben Baker’s brand. He balanced on the balls of his feet and waited for his opponent to throw the first punch. 

It was a haymaker, thrown with the full force of muscle and heavy bone. Bass dodged it and buried his fist in the man’s gut as he staggered off balance. Soft flesh over muscle. Hard man - probably a bad man - but not a professional. That meant he had to put on a show.

They danced around the roughly outlined ring, shedding blood and sweat on the hard-packed dirt. Bass let a punch land and staggered into the ground, rough hands catching him and shoving him back in again. He shook his head and spat blood.

The tone of the crowd shifted. They loved him when he was winning; seeing him lose would be even better. He caught the babble of the bookies adjusting odds and new wagers being laid. No faith - he licked the copper taste off his teeth - that’s what it was.

He circled his opponent - the man grinning like one punch a fight made. Probably it usually did - he hit like a horse kicked. Bass had been hit harder.

It was her eyes that caught his attention. Big eyes the colour of water and as transparent, her feelings all on the surface. Determination, idealism, anger...hate. Mostly hate when she looked at him. Rachel’s daughter. Miles’ niece. A walking, judging condemnation of everything he was, everything he’d done. 

Arousal twisted in his gut - fed on the adrenaline from the fight - and distracted him enough that another punch landed. Callus thickened knuckles caught him over the eye, skin splitting with a blunt shock of pain. 

He swiped the blood out of his face and when he looked up again, she was gone. The hard man he was laughing.

‘Not so pretty now, eh?’ he jeered.

Bass gave an empty smile. He wanted to hurt someone. This idiot would do. 

* * *

 

Stained, short fingers counted out stacks of coin resentfully. Charlie sympathised. She resented having won money on the bastard too, but she’d known he was going to win. He moved like Uncle Miles - half-drunk and deadly as a snake. 

‘Any other challengers?’ the blonde woman running the match asked, cocking her head. 

Charlie indulged a moment’s fantasy of taking her up on that, of cracking Monroe’s smug, mocking face under her knuckles until he looked like she felt. Broken.

‘Sure you don’t wanna bet on the next match?’ the bookie asked hopefully, a fake smile stretching cracked lips over chipmunk teeth. ‘There’s always someone fancies their chances.’

And lost. Charlie had always been able to hold her own in a brawl - sometimes just by sheer refusal to go down - and she’d been training with Miles. He was still better though, that meant so was Monroe.

She knew when she was outmatched, and thanks to Miles she knew what to do as well. Change the rules.

‘No thanks,’ she said, scooping up the coin. ‘I’ve something to do.’

He scowled at her, fingers twitching covetously. Charlie figured the three men that tried to follow her out of camp worked for him - but she lost two in the crowds. The third...well, he wasn’t Miles or Monroe. She left him on the ground behind a tent, bleeding from a crack to the head.

Charlie snuck out of the outskirts of New Vegas and went up into the sun-baked hills, fingers finding handholds of dry grass and rocks to haul herself up. She’d been 12 when she went hunting for the first time. The hoarded stores of tinned goods had run out, the seeds Dad planted never grew or rotted in the dirt - Maggie ranting about copyrighted genes and design ed obsolescence - and the only thing they had to trade...

No-one had said it aloud yet, but the way the last trader had looked at Maggie - and at Charlie - had been obvious. Charlie had lain awake that night, listening to Danny breathing, Maggie trying to talk herself into being a martyr and the gnawing hunger in her belly. She’d snuck into the trader’s caravan that night while he was noisily fucking some woman - Charlie hadn’t wanted to know who’d been desperate enough to make that deal - and stole a crossbow from his stocks.

Dad would have made her give it back, so she’d hidden it in the woods for months. Snares, she’d claimed when she bagged squirrels and racoons. Traps, when she’d been lucky enough to take down an old, sick deer in the winter.

He believed her - or pretended he did.

Charlie was a good hunter. The first few times she’d sobbed snot all over some squealing, injured thing as she wrung its neck, but then she realised the knack of it. Killing from a distance was easy; it was just aiming. Somewhere between the arrow leaving your bow and hitting home, there was a disconnect of intent. 

Just make sure you were good at aiming.

Charlie lay on her stomach behind a hardy tuft of sun-bleached grass, ignoring the itch of sand in her belly button and the tickle of sweat/bug feet on the back of her neck. There was no moon - it was just a rind-thin crescent - but New Vegas was bright enough. She could pick _him_ out of a crowd anyhow.

She primed the bow, rested her chin on her forearms and waited.

The two thugs dragged their staggering friend out of the shadows. Or maybe they weren’t such good friends - after a brief conversation they knocked him back down again and left him. The fire-breather packed up for the evening as night turned into murky light of almost-dawn, pulling her hair and heels off as she yawned her way to the caravan.

Finally Monroe came slouching out of the tent, bruised, battered and carrying a bottle for his trophy. He wiped his mouth and looked around, but must have decided he was too sore for company tonight. He cut through the tents, making for the caravans.

Charlie inhaled and squinted along the arrow. She should have taken Miles’ gun - but she’d left him with mom and Aaron. They got into more trouble than she ever had.

She waited, tracking him as he shouldered mutely past people and stepped in and out of the tents and stacked supplies

Clear shot. Kill shot. She didn’t want to have slit Monroe’s throat as he screamed. 

He stopped to take a swig from the bottle and now. Charlie exhaled and her finger twitched, mind already planting the bolt in the vulnerable stretch of skin under his throat. Then he dropped.

What the...

Charlie blinked, focus shattering. It took her a second to recognise the bloody, mush-faced thing hunched over Bass as the man who’d fought him earlier. He kicked Monroe in the gut, lifting him off the ground, and then pulled a knife from his coat.

Vengence for his face or after the bounty on General Monroe’s head? Either one was none of Charlie’s business she supposed. Monroe would be dead. She’d be free. Danny would have his revenge.

She watched the man crouch down, flipping Monroe over. The knife touched his throat and-

Charlie fired, finger jerking the trigger too hard so the bolt went wide. It hit the man in the stomach instead of the throat. He screamed, grabbing at his gut and trying to scramble away in the dirt. Blood stained the ground behind him like a slug.

'Sorry,' Charlie whispered, throat dry with shame and anger.

She wanted Monroe dead. He was the only person she'd ever hated that much. She'd been going to kill, had been ready to pull the trigger. So why couldn't she sit back and let him die? Was she really that weak?

* * *

 

His head hurt. Bass opened his eyes and closed them again, light scraping at the inside of his brain like razors. He was lying in the dirt and his head hurt. A cool hand patted his cheek.

‘Look at you,’ Annabeth said, voice unusually gentle. 'Still not dead.'

He laughed and regretted it. Opening his eyes he blinked at her. 'What happened.'

'A bad loser,' she said. 'I told you, be more wary. You're too trusting.'

Not something that anyone had said about him in years. Otherwise he wouldn't have been stealing Jeremy's name as his self-flagellating alias. It wasn't what she really meant, though. Drunk was what she really meant.

'I got whacked on the head,' he said, propping himself on his elbow. 'I've had worse.'

She looked him over, eyes lingering on his scars. 'He'd have slit your throat for you if the blow-in hadn't happened to be co-incidentally hunting in the hills and saw what happened in time to shoot him with a crossbow.'

'Co-incidence.'

He didn't believe in those. Neither did Annabeth. 'That's what she says.'

'She?' 

Plenty of people had reason to lurk in the dark, waiting for him with weapons. Only one he'd seen recently – or thought he had – who was a woman and liked crossbows. Charlotte.

Annabeth snorted at him. 'So now I know what it takes to make you smitten, Ben? A crossbow and a lot of anger?'

He could have explained, but he was looking past her shoulder at Charlotte. Her mouth was a hard line, her expression angry, but her emotions were still naked in those eyes of hers. Regret. Fear. Resignation.

'Hello, Sebastian,' she said, sounding tired. 'A thank you would be nice.'

He laughed, jarring his aching bones.

 


End file.
